Windows 8 bests Vista as third-most used OS, gains 5.1% of market

According to website traffic data collected by Net Applications, Windows 8 has hit a definite if seemingly unimpressive milestone. Windows 8 has finally managed to surpass its ill-liked ancestor, Windows Vista, in becoming the world's third-most used operating system.

Net Applications' data shows a significant uptake in Windows 8 systems since May, increasing from 4.27-percent to its current 5.1-percent figure.

Of course, running on just 5.1-percent of the world's computers, Windows 8 remains a truly distant third though. Currently, Windows 7 resides on 44.7-percent of systems while XP proudly occupies a still whopping 32.17-percent. Behind Windows 8 lie the three most-recent flavors of Mac OS X, which together total just 6.63-percent of the market. Meanwhile, "Other" operating systems account for only 2.11-percent of computers, globally.

Naturally, those numbers still show Windows overall is tops when it comes to total computer market share. With their figures combined, Windows XP, Vista, 7 and 8 are present on more than 90-percent of the world's computers; undoubtedly, "Microsoft" and "Windows" will remain household names for some time to come.

Despite Windows' immense poularity on desktops and laptops, the OS becomes less prolific when tablets and smartphones are taken into consideration. On mobile devices, there's little question Android and iOS reign supreme. In fact, Ubuntu's parent company, Canonical, recently marked its tongue-in-cheek "Bug #1" ticket as resolved (i.e. "Microsoft has a majority market share") thanks to recent estimates which took into account mobile devices and mobile operating systems.